WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH

MONDAY, FIFTENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

Isa 1:10-17; Ps 50:8-9,16-17,21,23; Mt 10:34-11:1

The Struggle for Spiritual Life

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will remain single and fruitless. But if it falls and dies, it bears plenty fruits. This is the saying of our Lord in Jn 12:24, and it describes the Christian life perfectly. This is the reason the Sower sows the seeds, as in the parable of the Sower we heard in yesterday’s Gospel. The acceptance and profession of faith in the Risen Lord, which commences the Christian life at baptism, is a falling into the grave or the earth as a seed that is sown. It is not an annihilation, but a sowing into the earth for the purpose of germinating a new and spiritual life from the old natural and corruptible life. This falling into the grave graced by the blood of the Lord is what the baptismal rite signifies. The immersion into the water is our sharing in the death and burial of Jesus Christ, so that our natural and sinful life may come to an end. What is expected and signified by our rising from the water is the sprouting of a new spiritual life, which is generically different from the old. Generically different because it comes from our faith in the word of God proclaimed to us, which we have heard, believed, and stored in our hearts. The growth and sustenance of the new life and its fruition depend wholly on the grace of the word of God.

That is to say that without faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our dying every day is in vain, for there would be no resurrection for us. But our genuine faith in Jesus Christ already proves that our dying is never in vain. His death was never in vain, for we already experience the effect of his resurrection in our bodies. To refuse to die is the expression of a lack of faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and also a lack of faith in God who sent His Son to be our redeemer. Since no one comes to God without faith, we cannot be called Christians without a life of faith. This is the reason Prophet Isaiah addressed the children of Israel as Sodom and Gomorrah. “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the command of our God, you people of Gomorrah.” He uses the name to qualify their lives of unfaithfulness to God’s Commandments. The lack of faith makes their ritual of worship loathsome to God. “What are your endless sacrifices to me? Says the Lord. I am sick of the holocausts of rams and the fat of calves. The blood of bulls and of goats revolts me. When you come to present yourselves before me, who asked you to trample over my courts? Bring me your worthless offerings no more, the smoke of them fills me with disgust.” The rituals and ceremonies of worship mean nothing without faithful hearts ready to do God's will always and in all things. This is what the Lord described as worship in spirit and in truth in Jn 4:23.

The formation of such faithful hearts is the mission of the Son of God in human nature. So, he instructs the Apostles that he came to bring a sword and not peace. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” By laying down his life for us, by which he frees us from sin and death, we receive a definitive invitation to believe in the word of God, the Gospel of salvation, the Son of Man proclaimed to us. Faith in the Gospel leads us to share in His death and life through baptism. By faith in his death, we are dead to whatever is of human will and contrary to the divine will; and by sharing in his resurrection, we live no longer for ourselves or for the world, but to do the will of God the Father. Hence, the line of division established by Jesus Christ is between the believers and unbelievers; it is the extension of the division between light and darkness. The sword symbolises and is the physical manifestation of the enmity between the woman and the ancient serpent, between her offspring and the offspring of the serpent. Thus, the Lord added: “Anyone who prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me.” The mysteries must be realised in our lives.

Let us pray: O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honour. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.